Spring Gardening

After the horrendous winter we endured, I couldn't wait to get out into the yard and start gardening.
I wanted to focus attention on the hosta area in the back yard first.  Lily of the Valley were taking over and water coming off the hill during hard rains had washed away a lot of the top soil and leaf mulch.

I dug out for the dry river bed in hopes that it would direct runoff water around the plants instead of burying them in debris. We've had several days of rain since, and so far so good. :)
I also added a thick layer of leaf mulch to keep weeds at bay.

Now if I can just get Hubby to remove that giant log...
Next, I moved on to the side yard, a small strip along the retaining wall.

 Mainly weeding, a clean edge, and some moving of plants was all that was needed for now.  It also got a layer of compost until we can get mulch down.  The only thing blooming over here this early is the Forget me nots.  The ferns  are a pretty bright green, though. And the orange poppies will be opening soon.
On the other side of the gate is a very shaded walkway.  One side is filled with a variety of ferns and hostas, and along the house I have bleeding heart and yellow celandine poppies which are in bloom now and will bloom on and off through the summer.

There's still lots more to do, and I'll be starting in the front yard this weekend as well as picking up a few annuals for the containers.
How about you? Have you been playing in the garden, too?  Happy planting, everyone!

Porch Railing Planter Boxes

It's time to plant the annuals! I love planting flowers, its like therapy. :)
I've been doing a little better the last couple of years, not going totally crazy at the greenhouse...but it is hard!  I limited myself to buying just enough to fill 2 hanging baskets and 4 pots on the deck and the 3 railing planters on the front porch.  In this year's planters I have Million Bells petunias (in orange, red, and pink), sweet potato vine, New guinea impatiens, and vinca.

My previous blog post and various pictures of the railing planters have been getting lots of traffic from pinterest lately, so I thought I would do a follow-up on what I did this year to improve them a bit.
I wanted the planters to have the same look as my moss-lined hanging baskets .  I found expandable ones at Home Depot. (I don't think they carry them anymore, though).

They are meant to hold one of those plastic window boxes, but I ran some wire around them so that I could line them with spahgnum moss and plant directly in that.  It worked out pretty well, but I noticed that by mid to late summer, when the plants were full grown, the boxes just weren't deep enough and didn't hold enough dirt to keep the flowers happy.

So this year I lined them with chicken wire that extended about 2 inches above the top. Much Better! There should be plenty of room for healthy and happy roots well into fall.

And as long as we're out here, here's a few more front yard photos.  :)
Ooohh, and you can see in the picture above that we also finally got our bubbler fountain (from the other house) installed at the new place.

And this is a photo of the house when we purchased it 2 and a half years ago...

And this is it now...

We still have quite a bit of work to do on the front landscaping, but that will all come in time.
Have you gotten any annuals planted yet? Happy gardening, everyone.